How much space needs to exist between drapery treatments?
We often have conversations with designers & contractors about the amount of space/room that we will need to install our product and ensure that it works correctly. Here we’ve sought to explain what we mean by ‘space’ or ‘room’ in the hopes that it helps designers, purchasing agents, or project managers in avoiding headaches.
Another factor closely related to the installation of hardware and space between treatments is blocking. Read our post ‘What is Blocking for Hospitality & Healthcare Window Treatments?’
The typical answer to the question is three inches. Three inches are needed between each treatment, between the wall and the 1st treatment, and between the last treatment and a cornice or valence if there is one. The reason why this is key, is that less space can cause problems such as treatments rubbing on each other, the smoothness of the treatment traversing becomes impaired, or the treatment rubs on the inside of the cornice/valence and is worn much faster than normal. All of these are serious problems to the functionality and integrity of the product. All of them can also easily be avoided by simply allowing three inches of space between treatments.
See our blog post Drapery Spacing Requirements to see the different scenarios.
Below you can see two pictures where adequate space between treatments was not given. In this case, GC built cornices were installed prior to our team being onsite. As we began to install we quickly realized the distance between the wall and inside of the cornice was less than adequate.
In the image above you can see the sheer between the two tracks of hardware. The limited space is causing the sheer to rub on the backside of the over drape’s master carrier. Immediately this causes the sheer to have trouble traversing. Long term, this continued rubbing will wear the front of the sheer very quickly creating the need for replacement.
In the image below you can see the overdrape between the hardware track and the cornice front. The overdrape rubs, just the same as the sheer, on the front of the cornice causing it to not traverse smoothly and will potentially cause wear much more rapidly than normal.
For reference please see the two diagrams below showing from an above view how that 3" is taken up by the drapery. The first image shows a pinch pleat rod & drape and the second image shows a ripplefold rod & drape from above (take a look at other pleat styles here).
Problems like this arise from time to time but they can be avoided when we know the right information! We hope this was helpful. Please let us know if you have any specific questions.
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